A new article by John Bachtler and Carlos Mendez, entitled 'Who Governs EU Cohesion Policy?', has been published in the Journal of Common Market Studies.
The article re-assesses the multi-level governance debate, and specifically the 'renationalisation thesis', with respect to EU Cohesion policy. It focuses on two of the principles of decision-making under the Structural Funds: concentration (decisions on where the money is spent) and programming (decisions on how it is spent).
The analysis takes a longitudinal approach, examining each of the policy phases from 1988 until the present debate on 2007-2013. The paper concludes that the role of national governments (relative to the European Commission) in key decisions on the implementation of Cohesion policy has been exaggerated in the literature, and that important arguments underpinning the 'renationalisation thesis' are flawed. The paper can be downloaded here